


Breaking the Ice

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Rescue Me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-19
Updated: 2007-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:18:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1636070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They were his secret friends, just like his Ma used to have."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking the Ice

**Author's Note:**

> Starlurker asked for "Mike Siletti, two weeks after coming out of the closet." I got as close to that timeline as I could. Many thanks to Orangetip and Kirbyfest for beta.   
> 
> 
> Written for starlurker

 

 

It was one of the few photos that didn't burn in the fire. Mike used to keep little stashes of them where his Ma couldn't see: in the glovebox of his car, under his mattress, in the shoebox in the closet that did burn up, even one tucked in the baggie with the white tape in his hockey bag. This one had been hidden way in the back of his locker at the station; he knew better than to tape it inside the door. The guys would never let him hear the end of it.

He sat on the locker bench, listening for footsteps while he studied the photo. Try as he might, he didn't see why Sean had automatically assumed it was his Ma being gay. She wasn't kissing the woman next to her; they were just standing there posing for the camera, big smiles on both their faces. Mike didn't know the other woman - heck, he almost didn't recognize his Ma when he first saw it. She looked so different, so... _pretty_. The big crease between her eyebrows, the one he always thought of when he thought of her, didn't exist in the photo. Her whole face was smoother than he'd ever seen it, even when he was a kid and she was still young. She looked...Mike didn't know the word for how she looked. She just looked different.

He was sliding the photo back into its secret spot when Lou and Tommy walked in, talking really fast over each other about something he couldn't follow. Tommy stopped cold in the middle of the floor. "What?"

"What what?" Mike replied.

"What's with the boo-hoo face? You scared of something? You got something in there you"re hiding?" Sometimes it was hard to tell if Tommy was teasing or serious. This was one of those times.

"Tommy, man, c'mon," he tried to bluster, but Tommy strode over to his locker in two steps and started pulling things off the shelf.

"You don't have any of those faggoty creams in there again, right, Probie?"

Relief washed over him. This was easy to deflect. "That cream is good for my complexion." He grabbed the tube out of Tommy's hands. "And the girls like the smell."

Tommy rolled his eyes. "Don't be late for the game," he scolded, then turned back to Lou to pick back up their conversation mid-stream, ignoring Mike again. This time Mike didn't mind.

++++++

He was early for the game that night, tired of sitting around his empty new apartment, tired of wishing there was something in there that looked familiar to him. It sounded stupid now that he was here, but he thought he wanted to come here early because he felt more comfortable in the locker room than he did anywhere else these days. The smell of sweat and dirty socks, the balls of rolled-up tape and crushed water cups littering the floor, the sounds of metal clanging and men swearing, all of it made him stupidly happy to be around. Sometimes, when the sweat smell was particularly fresh and no one was paying attention to him, it made him hard.

Strains of music from the direction of the ice caught his attention, and he headed over to look on his way to the lockers. A pretty girl was skating alone, her ponytail flying behind her as her legs scissored the air in a jump. She sped around the rink twice, her arms stretched out on either side of her, then jumped again in a big spin. _Cool._

He leaned on his hockey stick and kept watching as she danced and weaved around the ice. He'd been skating since Pee-wee league and he didn't know how to do some of those moves. How was she able to do that split-jump thing?

He was surprised when a guy came out of the penalty box door and joined her in the middle of a move, but the girl seemed to expect him. The two of them didn't talk as they started some complicated twisting thing with their arms, skating together in a circle. Then the guy lifted her up, as easy as if she were an empty hose, and spun her around over his head. _Whoa._

Mike couldn't stop looking at the guy, the way his hands would spread wide across the girl's stomach and thigh, the way his legs pushed them both across the ice when she was in his arms, the way his face looked so smooth and unconcerned as he skated to the music.

"What the fuck is this bullshit?" Tommy's annoyed bray shattered the moment like a brick through glass. He came up beside Mike, barely glancing at the couple before he blew a raspberry through his lips. "Assholes better be done before the game starts, or I'll kick the crap out of them."

"Yeah," Mike agreed, and followed Tommy into the locker room.

+++++

He made sure not to let Tommy catch him again, but he started going early to the rink every chance he could. The third time, the girl gave him a wave just before he turned to leave, and he couldn't help waving back. The seventh time, she started to skate over to where he stood, but he escaped to the locker room before she made it over to his side. After that, she left him alone.

The guy never even looked at him. That kind of pissed Mike off, in a way he didn't understand but that made him get stupid drunk with Sean the night he thought about it for too long. He wasn't going back to spy on them anymore, he decided as he puked in an alley on his way home. Even he knew this was pointless.

He would have kept that promise, too, if she hadn't been waiting for him outside the rink after a game the following week.

"Hi," he said lamely as she approached him, her breath huffing out in a big cloud that disappeared as soon as she got close.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Molly."

"Mike." He looked up at her through his lashes. Most girls forgave him when he did that. "Sorry for spying on you."

Her brow furrowed. "Why'd you stop?"

"I dunno," he evaded, balling his hands in his pockets.

She looked at him for a long beat. He supposed he should feel uncomfortable, but he didn't. She wasn't being mean; she seemed like she was just trying to understand him. _Let me know what you figure out_ , he wanted to say to her. _I could use the help._

"My partner's name is Dima," she finally said. "We...we've been partners a long time."

"Dima? That's a funny name."

"He's Russian."

"Oh." Mike shuffled his feet, dismayed. He didn't know how to speak Russian. "That's cool, I guess."

She stared at him for another long moment. "Anyway, you don't have to stop watching us. It's okay."

He looked at her face, unlined and pink-cheeked. He wondered what that felt like, to never be worried or afraid. To like who you were. He wondered if they could teach him that.

"Thanks. I--maybe I'll come by tomorrow."

+++++

"--I am telling you, this girl has an ass you want to grab onto for dear life," Tommy was saying as Mike walked into the kitchen for an apple.

"Yeah?" Sean leaned forward in his chair. "I could use some tight ass."

"Do not start talking to me about how hard up you are now that you're not banging my sister," Tommy yelled, shuddering. "She's my goddamned SISTER."

Sean started protesting, so Mike turned to Franco. "Who's the girl?"

"Some chick Tommy sees at the rink," Franco said disinterestedly. "A skater, I think."

"Her name's Molly," Mike informed him. He started to say something else when he realized Tommy and Sean had stopped their arguing to listen. "She's--she's nice."

Tommy's eyes narrowed. "You nailing her?"

He thought about the crease in his Ma's brow, the smooth faces of Dima and Molly as they spun around the ice. "Yeah, I'm nailing her," he lied.

"Asshole," Sean said good-naturedly. Tommy looked unconvinced, but Franco grinned and patted him on the back, and the conversation quickly swung around to some girl's tits that Sean saw on the subway.

Mike waited until they were ignoring him again before he rubbed his thumb between his eyebrows, checking.

++++++

He saw them right at the beginning of the second period, standing at the edge of the bleachers near his goal. Dima was behind Molly, his hand loosely on her shoulder -- a pose he recognized as familiar for them. Hunh, this time they were watching him. He kind of liked it.

He liked it even more when he saw them cheer when he scored a goal. So much so he never saw the guy stick him from the right. All he saw was Dima smiling at him, his arms raised in victory, then he was down on his knees eating a mouthful of ice. His mouth was bleeding for the next ten minutes, but the pain never felt so good.

He kept waiting for Tommy to say something, for Sean to notice them standing just a hundred yards away from him, but no one did. So he spent all his time on the bench sneaking peeks at them -- kind of like he did his stash of photos, he realized with an embarrassed smile. They were his secret friends, just like his Ma used to have.

It was the best he'd felt in a long time.

++++++

Molly was waiting for him in the parking lot again after the game, as bright as a new penny in the snow. She bounced on her toes as he approached.

"You're a good player," she said.

"Thanks." He looked over her shoulder, but no one was there.

"Are you disappointed?" She asked it like she already knew the answer.

"What?" Mike scrambled, caught. "No, I just, uh--..."

"Mike, who is that you want?" she asked quietly. "Him or me?"

His laugh sounded extra loud when it came out. "Molly, c'mon, what are you asking? That's crazy."

"Why, because you're a hockey player?"

"Because I play hockey, and I'm a fireman, and I'm just not...I don't...guys don't...I'm not..." He'd denied this a hundred times, and the words never got stuck like this.

"Mike." She said his name as softly as she touched his arm. "It's okay."

He swallowed. He missed his Ma so much right now. He'd love to ask her how she did this. If it was worth it.

Then he remembered her creaseless face in the photo, and he knew what her answer would be.

"Him." Oh. That was easier than he thought. "I want him."

Molly smiled at him. "Is that the first time you've said that?"

He smiled back at her, relieved. "Yeah."

"Wow." She squeezed his arm. "Good for you."

"So, uh, where is--"

"Over by the car," she said with a quick brush of a kiss against his cheek. "He's waiting for you."

++++++

Dima was leaning against the car, his long legs crossed at the ankles matching his crossed arms at his chest. He didn't look nearly as unconcerned as he did when he was on the ice. Mike was halfway to him when he realized they'd never spoken to each other. Then he remembered why.

"Hi," he said with an exaggerated wave. He pointed to himself and enunciated with a wide mouth. "I. Am. Miiiiiike."

Dima's worried expression shifted into a smirk. "I speak English. I have lived in this country since I was sixteen."

"Oh." Mike grinned. "That's a relief."

"Yes, for me too." Dima's grin matched his.

 _Okay, so now what?_ Mike had no idea.

"Do you drink?" he asked.

Dima shrugged. "I am Russian."

"Okay, well, I'm American," Mike replied, puzzled. "Glad we got that sorted out."

Dima laughed and unfolded himself from against the car. "I mean, I am Russian. Of course I drink."

"Oh. I--"

"That is okay. I have trouble understanding sometimes too. Molly, she talks very fast." Dima's smooth face gleamed in the streetlight as he smiled at Mike. "We will figure it out together, yes?"

Mike felt his own face smooth out. "Yeah, let's do that."

++++++

He took the photo out of its hiding place and taped it to the inside of his locker two weeks later. Sean started to say something, but Tommy stopped him with a sharp elbow to the ribcage.

"She looks happy," he remarked as he scanned the Polaroid over Mike's shoulder.

"Yeah," Mike sighed. "I think she was."

Tommy looked at the photo for another beat before coughing and putting on his sunglasses. He started to walk away, then turned back and poked Mike in the chest.

"Just don't ever let me catch you looking at my ass."

Mike smiled and shook his head. "No problem, man."

And it wasn't.

THE END

 

 

 


End file.
